Nimue Brown's Blog, page 4

Sirens and Prayers

(created by Nimue, trapped by James)

I’ve had a prayer practice for more than a decade now. It’s never been a consistent prayer practice because I like to try different things. I find it interesting as a process and learned early on that if anything could be said about prayer it’s that it probably won’t work in the way you think it should.

At the moment, I’m more alert to sound than I have been in the past. As a consequence, I hear a lot of sirens through the day. I never know what sort of emergency vehicle I’m hearing, but it seems fair to assume that each one represents some unfolding crisis. What I’ve been doing for a while now is each time I hear one, offering up a small prayer for whoever needs the help the sirens represent.

I genuinely have no idea whether anything helpful is done for other people by praying in this way. It would be nice to think it did. At the same time, I have no inclination to try and persuade myself that I’m magically saving anyone. However, this kind of prayer has an impact. It means that multiple times in a day, I’m alert to the suffering of other people. There’s a lot of it out there. The need for help and kindness is clearly huge, and if my prayers can’t help with that, at least they can acknowledge it. I find it helps me keep my own situation in perspective. It reminds me that there’s common humanity in how we all suffer. As I said, prayer does not tend to work in the most obvious ways, but it will reliably impact in some way on the person doing it, and that’s probably a good thing.

The Keys to Kindness

(Spoken by Nimue, typed by James)

Hurrah for audiobooks! For being able to borrow them from UK libraries and for devices that do not use touch screens.

This is a fascinating book exploring the science of kindness. It draws on a range of studies from around the world to look at the many ways in which kindness impacts on us and those we bring it to. From my perspective this book offers the perfect balance of properly scientific material and accessible presentation. The author assumes that you the reader are clever, but not necessarily up to speed with all the technical jargon. The book is written in a warm and human way mixing personal anecdotes with the results of research projects.

Kindness can mean a great many things and it might be more tempting to focus on dramatic examples of heroism and self sacrifice. However, the author is more interested in the implications of everyday kindness. While more dramatic examples are explored, this is much more about normal life overall. Kindness impacts on our mental health. It can inform social connection and has a huge capacity to improve things. Small acts of kindness get a lot done. By dint of being small, such acts are available to us all every day. The book offers a great many ways of thinking about kindness and thinking about being kinder. Which is all good, and I found it very helpful.

Back when I was at college, we were still arguing about whether nature or nurture most informed a person’s psychological makeup. At this point, the superior influence of nurture is generally recognised. What this book brings in, is a third aspect in the form of choice. I’m really glad about this. that whole nature/nurture business laves us too passive. It turns out that our choices inform how our brains work. You start wherever you start, with whatever hardware and opportunities are available to you, but you get a vote. The everyday choices we make really do shape who we are. There’s a lot to be said for choosing kindness anytime that’s an option. It’s not just better for other people around us, it’s better for our own well being too.

I can heartily recommend this book.. As well as being informative on the science front, it’s good philosophically as well, and gives you plenty to work with.

The Physicality of Mental Health

(Created by Nimue, transcribed by James)

This year has given me opportunities to measure some of what panic and anxiety do to my body. That’s included impact on my pulse rate, blood pressure, and dramatically spiking my blood sugar. No doubt other things are happening too. Panic, stress and anxiety have the body releasing adrenaline and cortisol, both of which then lead to pumping sugar into the bloodstream. In the short term, this is of course useful for fight or flight responses. However, extreme panic and anxiety over prolonged periods will clearly mess you up. Anxiety isn’t just a brain feature. It happens in your whole body.

I’ve got less data about what depression does to me. My impression at this point is that the empty dead hollow feelings of depression represent an absence. A lot of important body chemistry is made in response to happiness. We need those chemicals to regulate our systems in all kinds of ways. Without them, the unregulated body is malfunctioning and will be ill.

I recon a lot of this can be blamed on Descartes with his mind/body dualism. We know now that biologically speaking, the brain and the body are not separate. Thinking processes occur throughout the central nervous system. Hormones and other body chemistry are involved in mood, and in body functionality. We have just this one lump of squishy anatomy responding to life experience, events in the brain are events in the whole system.

Mental health is health. Physical health is mental health. We have to stop dividing these things up. you can’t treat a body that is ill while ignoring the emotional impact of that illness. Life invariably inflicts a lot of crap on people. Experiences of breaking and mending are going to be constants. But perhaps if we could be kinder to our brains, we’d have a better shot at all of that.

Druidry and Justice

(narrated by Nimue, journaled by James)

Justice is a human concept. it doesn’t really exist in nature. Any living being may experience life as fair or unfair but when you think about nature as a whole, it just is. No moral judgements are being made. One of the worst things about religion is this human urge to find meaning in random experience. When we see life as holding that kind of meaning, bad experiences can look like punishment. This never goes well. If you think some sueprnatrual force is dishing out punishment in the form of suffering then you blame those who suffer for things they may well have no control over. Connecting misfortune with sin ironically results in something that is totally unjust.

If we treat justice as a human concept and relate to it purely on human terms that’s a better approach. This raises questions of how we think about fairness and unfairness. What does justice mean? What does it look like? how do we achieve it? I have a deep distrust of punishment dished out as justice. I don’t think it fixes anything. I’m much more interested in justice that restores, fixes, or gives something back. I think we need much more attention paid to the ways in which we are responsible for each other. So much that is criminalised is a direct consequence of systems that were unfair in the first place. For me, social justice is a critical aspect of justice. I also want to think about what environmental justice means in terms of human action. What do we owe to the living world? Perhaps justice is best considered in terms of personal responsibility and what we are prepared to step up to, not what we want to inflict on other people.

Gaining and Losing Senses

(Enunciated by Nimue, scribed by James)

It’s a commonly held belief that if you lose a sense others will improve to compensate. Your mileage may vary, but this is my experience so far…

My hearing has always been superb. This means that it’s quite useful right now for adding information. I’ve always been in the habit of paying attention to sounds around me. This is an information source I am used to using. It hasn’t improved noticeably, I’m just making good use of what I’ve got.

My spatial awareness has always been a bit crap. However, right now a sense of space is a helpful way to navigate. I’m slowly learning where things are in the spaces around me. It’s a slog. I have not acquired any natural talent for spatial awareness. What I do have is a huge incentive to try and learn to do better.

I’m quite a tactile person, there are things I can do by touch. I can identify a lot of my own clothing that way for a start. Again, there have been no changes to my senses here. There is a shift in my priorities. I’m exploring how to use touch and skin sensation to feel more present in the world, hoping to compensate for how loss of vision has felt alienating. that’s a work in progress, and if there’s anything interesting I’ll come back on that.

This all aligns with broader experiences. I don’t really believe in talent. Natural gifts are few and far between. My hearing is good, and some of that is a body issue, but some of it is a consequence of years of paying attention to sound. I can improve my spatial knowledge. I can figure out ways to use the senses I have. Anyone who is down a sense has a lot of motivation to put in the work, however deliberately. Our brains adapt, although we might not always be conscious of what they’re doing. I don’t believe that anyone gets an upgrade on some other sense when one goes wrong. I’m pretty confident that deliberately working with what you’ve got gets the most done, but there might be room for unconscious brain adaptation. Its still work, even if we don’t notice ourselves doing it.

Thank you to Christopher Blackwell for the prompt.

This too is Life

(Spoken by Nimue, translated into written word by James)

About a week after the eye operation, I hit what was probably rock bottom. This in many ways was a relief. At that point I knew that in terms of eyesight, things were probably as bad as they were going to get. Knowing that, in any situation, can be really helpful. When you hit rock bottom, the only available move is up. I knew from there, that I’d either have to learn to adapt to what I’d got, or I’d heal, and either way things would get better.

One of the thoughts that came to me at this time was simply ‘this too is life’. I’d been round all of the obvious grief processes with my share of anger, disbelief and inability to make sense of what had happened to me. Life is full of things that we don’t deserve, haven’t attracted and can’t make sense of. My experiences are quite normal in that regard. I’m fortunate in knowing a great many other people’s stories which hold mine in perspective. There’s nothing unique or special about any of this.

The only thing to do with experience is live it as best you can. This too is life. Right now mine is full of things that I’m finding hard, but it’s the life I’ve got. ‘Shit happens’ is a wisdom statement that I’ve turned to over many years. It’s an important, universal sort of truth. There’s not a lot of sense to what life does to many of us. Alongside the privilege of getting older – which so many people don’t experience – is the certainty of health challenges. By prehistoric standards I’m ancient. For most of human history, as a female pauper, I’d be doing well to have got this far. Stories are helpful in not taking this stuff too personally. whatever it brings, what we get is life, and there is no good option but to try and live it.

Time in the Otherworld

(Verbalized by Nimue, translated into written word by James)

In the ballad ‘Thomas the Rhymer’, Faerie is described as a land with neither sun nor moon. My loss of vision has left me spending most of my time in a strange kind of twilight. The faerie folklore has been rather on my mind. Sometimes it feels as though I have stepped out of the human realm and into some otherworldly state. It’s all been rather uncanny. Fairly familiar places are now strange and surprising. My ability to work out where I am varies. Not being able to see faces well adds another layer of uncanniness.

Brains are rather good at filling in the gaps. This is how psychedelic drugs work! Where I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing, sometimes my brain interprets wildly. I did get one giant spider, but most usually I get bonus dogs. It’s an interesting discovery, apparently my default is to interpret what I can’t understand as something quite friendly. While my limited vision creates a lot of feelings of strangeness and sometimes alienation, the world feels like a friendly place. I’m inclined to attribute that to my brain as much as anything. Even in stressful situations, I’m not populating the darkness with anything horrifying.

Thomas the Rhymer himself spent seven years in Faerie and then returned. I’m hoping for a shorter stay in this strange twilight realm, but in the meantime, I’m trying to appreciate the peculiar gifts this experience has to offer.

Vision and Gratitude

(Spoken by Nimue, typed by James)

While I’ve experienced considerable grief around the loss of eyesight I’ve also been feeling a great deal of gratitude. This is taking two forms. The first one is pretty obvious, I’m not completely blind, and I’m grateful for everything I can still see. I have some hope of recovery, and day by day small things return to me. Every time a detail, a colour, or similar becomes available to me again, the joy and gratitude are intense.

Along side this, I’ve also been feeling intense gratitude for how I’ve lived to this point. I’ve spent my life looking at the world with love, curiosity and enthusiasm. I’ve paid attention to the beauty of landscapes and the natural world. All of that remains inside me. Having that body of experience is something I can keep no matter what else happens. Right now, buttercups are strange luminous things and I cannot properly see their yellowness, but I can see them enough to remember.

Everyone faces challenges and setbacks. None of us knows what life might take away, or when. The only answer is to live fully and wholeheartedly, making the best of whatever you’ve got. I’m glad of how I’ve spent my time to this point, and the many visible riches I treasured when I had the opportunity. It’s often the things we don’t do that we come to regret the most, and my approach to life in the past has protected me from that at least where this loss of vision is concerned.

Today I saw goslings. They were fuzzy, in my vision as well as in themselves, but I could tell they were there. It feels like a blessing.

Making a Contribution

(Spoken by Nimue, typed by James)

Humans are naturally co-operative. Collaboration has always been key to our success and survival. As a consequence, most of us feel invested in being useful to others. It can be a big part of your sense of self. This is something I’ve had a lot of time to think about of late. In many ways I’m not useful at all right now, and looking after me has created a huge workload for others.

Part of the problem here is capitalism. We’re in a system that defines our usefulness in terms of economic activity. It would be fair to say that some people who are very economically active are of little use to anyone else at all… But internalised capitalism can have us seeing our value only in terms of the money we earn.

Being of value to each other is so much bigger than this. I think of the activists who give their lives to causes, earning little but achieving a lot. I think about the people who devote their lives to caring for others, usually unpaid. And alongside those, the undervalued healing professionals. If we paid people based on their real value, nurses and care home workers would have a very different experience.

We can support each other with encouragement and inspiration. Sharing stories can inform and heal others. Simply sharing this journey of being alive is a really important thing to do. Human community and human value can truly be found in what we share. Usefulness is more than economic utility. When we look for those gifts that others can bring and don’t just judge by earning power our lives and communities are much richer.

The Invisible Spring

(Nimue dictating James typing)

This spring engaging with the changing seasons has been difficult. Unable to see much and often very ill, I’ve felt very cut off and also deeply in need of my connections to the natural world. In the past walking has been central to how I do my Druidry. Going out and looking at the world has been my key way of connecting. This spring I’ve not been able to see much at all.

I have walked when I could – dependant on help from Keith primarily. He’s been brilliant at telling me what was around me. That has meant some scope for seeing seasonal wildflowers. Although not in great detail. Birdsong has been really important to me and I can identify some birds by their calls. I’ve heard the dawn chorus more mornings than not, and it’s become a key point of connection.

My whole sense of time has been strangely affected by not seeing in the same way. I’m in a state of perpetual twilight. Days have had very different shapes and this has impacted on my body clock, so I am living in a strange liminal time space. Things I used to take for granted about the passage of time I now have to be more deliberate about. As I’m getting more on top of things, I hope to be able to share more about what I’m learning and experiencing. Hopefully I will eventually be able to read and write again. That could be some months away, so in the meantime, I’m adapting and healing as best I can. As James is doing a good job of typing(why thank you), this may give us a way forward.